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Re: The austrlian distraction

My guess is that the purpose of posting many of these "politically hot topics" disguised as a genuine conversation is to use the forums as a means of gaining or furthering the search engine optimization of their agendas. There never was any intent to have an informed conversation, only to be found on the first page of some search engines.

Re: The Australian Distraction Defense

Re Castor Oil Plant,

Quote- "According to the 2007 edition of Guinness World Records, this plant is the most poisonous in the world. Despite this, suicides involving ingestion of castor beans are unheard of in countries like India where castor grows abundantly on the roadsides, which may be attributed to the rather painful and unpleasant symptoms of overdosing on ricin, which can include nausea, diarrhea, tachycardia, hypotension and seizures persisting for up to a week."

Re: The Australian Distraction Defense

Originally Posted by borderbeeman

I wouild love to respond to your questions but the Moderator is not allowing me to post in real time or in real locations.
I assume this is to destroy any proper conversation. He no longer allows me to start topics and I cannot respond to questions directly.
Sorry - but that is 'the rules' apparently/.

Commenting about moderation is against the rules too. You got to pull that off, so I'm pretty sure you might get away with answering a question.

Re: The Australian Distraction Defense

well, in the same article, the sentence just before your citation: "The toxicity of raw castor beans is due to the presence of ricin. Although the lethal dose in adults is considered to be four to eight seeds, reports of actual poisoning are relatively rare." But, I do not understand your point: are you trying to compromise the information I provided or what? I used to work with ricin (not as a poison) and shared my memories from that time. It was my personal experience. I never eat castor beans, thus, I was not aware that even one bean is dangerous. I apologize for my limited personal knowledge.

Re: The Australian Distraction Defense

Originally Posted by borderbeeman

I wouild love to respond to your questions but the Moderator is not allowing me to post in real time or in real locations.
I assume this is to destroy any proper conversation. He no longer allows me to start topics and I cannot respond to questions directly.
Sorry - but that is 'the rules' apparently/.

Re: The Australian Distraction Defense

I think we need to give the benefit of the doubt to Barry on this one. Any actions he takes are with what he judges to be the best interests of the forum as a whole in mind. This forum isn't either a free for all or a democracy. It is a creation of Barry's.

"People will generally accept facts as truth only if the facts agree with what they already believe."- Andy Rooney

Re: The Australian Distraction Defense

Originally Posted by jim lyon

I think we need to give the benefit of the doubt to Barry on this one.

Jim,

If I were a moderator, I'd have sent this guy into oblivion long ago, so I have the highest regard for Barry and commend him on his restraint. However, borderman's story doesn't smell right to me and I was just wondering if a moderator could confirm the claims above. It appears to me that when pushed to answer pointed questions he pulls the "moderator won't let me talk card".

Re: The Australian Distraction Defense

Originally Posted by Michael Palmer

I tried to contribute to your debate and you brushed me off. Said you didn't know why my bees would be healthy. I'll say it again. I keep more than 1000 colonies including wintered nucleus colonies and production colonies. I made 100+ lbs/colony from the honey producers. My bees are surrounded by corn treated with clothianidin. My winter losses are between 10% and 15%...same as always since varroa arrived. Diagnosing the losses, it becomes obvious the most of the losses were from varroa.

So, tell me why my bees aren't aren't sick from neonics. If one were to believe in your dogma, my bees should be crashing from CCD.

Michael, take a look at my post on the time-dependent effects of imidacloprid. We live in a grey zone, usually just below the toxic threshold. Healthy bees are fine even with a fair level of exposure - especially in the summer. If the goldenrod fails and irrigated corn was all there was - you might have a different experience. Or if you get a KPV outbreak, etc. The reason why this problem has gone unresolved for so long is that most of the time you don't see an effect, either because the bees are strong enough to not mind losses of 30 day bees when they should go to 35 days, or the residuals are low enough that you are a lucky one. What fraction of your bee forage is corn?
Do you ever wonder if Varroa could be more of a problem because some of the bees are too stoned to scratch? Low quantities of nerve toxin will have behavioral effects long before it kills bees. What behavioral traits do the bees need to better resist Varroa? Is it helpful to have an intact nervous system or does it not really matter? I have my suspicions, but maybe I'm wrong.

Re: The Australian Distraction Defense

Grondeau: I checked out your web site and read it end to end. Am I mistaking or is missing from any of this research actual evidence that bees anywhere are actually foraging on corn. There is always lots of lab research indicating at what levels neonics are toxic to bees but no research analyzing what pollens are actually in the hives and what levels of neonics are contained in those pollens. I am with MP on this. We have lots and lots of healthy looking hives sitting adjacent to large fields of corn and have yet to sense there is any direct relationship between strong hives and the acreages of corn nearby. You asked Mr. Palmer what percentage of his forage is corn as if it's a given that there is a percentage. I recently openly asked the forum if anyone has actually seen bees foraging in field corn. Personally, I have not and no one else stepped up to say they had either. Surely there is some data out there analyzing the pollens in the hive and what, if any, poisons are found in such pollen. It seems to me that sunflowers and canola may well be a whole different situation but field corn?

"People will generally accept facts as truth only if the facts agree with what they already believe."- Andy Rooney

Re: The Australian Distraction Defense

Grondeau,

You say we live just below the toxic threshold of neonics: 1) Do you know what is the toxic threshold of neonics?; 2) Do you know what level we are currently at?

Also, you ask Mr. Palmer "what fraction of your bees forage on corn?": 1) Do you know what fraction of bees could forage on corn with no noticeable negative affects to the hive? 2) Do you know what fraction of total pollen in a hive can be corn pollen and the hive will still be healthy?

(BTW, I like your Date Trike, and I, too, spent a huge amount of time working on pulsed power systems for particle acceleration.)

Re: The Australian Distraction Defense

I suspect corn is not the first choice for bees. Krupke, in the middle of the corn belt, saw 45% of pollen coming in as corn pollen. I'm guessing if the bees have their choice between goldenrod and corn - they pick goldenrod. Nevertheless, the 4ppb in the pollen that Krupke reports -is roughly the same dose that kills bees outright in 30 days. If that's the stores my bees have for the winter, I would be concerned. Other places- I can't recall where right off the bat, I saw reports of bees bringing in up to ~80% corn pollen at some times.

From the Krupke paper:

Later in the season, pollen collected by bees when corn was shedding pollen in the area had up to 88 parts per billion (ppb) of clothianidin in it. These results suggest that there are many potential routes for exposure, but does not identify the key factor. We hypothesize that corn being planted nearby acts as a source of talc which may have contaminated flowers that bees were foraging on. Corn pollen from plants grown from treated seed had much less clothianidin, about 4 parts per billion. This is not enough to kill bees outright, but about 45% of the pollen our bees were collecting at that time was corn pollen. We do not know what effect this level of pesticide has on nurse bees that consume the pollen, or on the larvae they are feeding it to. Clothianidin is fairly stable in the soil with a documented half-life (the amount of time until half of the material is broken down in soil) of up to three years (EPA - 2003). After testing soil from various fields, we found that levels were just as high (about 9 ppb) in a field that had not had treated seed of any kind planted in it for the previous two growing seasons. Our overall conclusion was that the greatest danger occurs at planting time (due to the waste talc from planters), but that bees are exposed to sublethal levels of pesticide throughout the growing season. Our research paper is published online and is freely available (http://www.plosone.org/article/info:...l.pone.0029268).

Re: The Australian Distraction Defense

Originally Posted by Michael Palmer

I tried to contribute to your debate and you brushed me off. Said you didn't know why my bees would be healthy. I'll say it again. I keep more than 1000 colonies including wintered nucleus colonies and production colonies. I made 100+ lbs/colony from the honey producers. My bees are surrounded by corn treated with clothianidin. My winter losses are between 10% and 15%...same as always since varroa arrived. Diagnosing the losses, it becomes obvious the most of the losses were from varroa.

So, tell me why my bees aren't aren't sick from neonics. If one were to believe in your dogma, my bees should be crashing from CCD.

Hi Mike
I was thinking about your statement. There are some comments below, but please, keep in mind, I have no intention to escalate this hot topic. I want just discuss as you wish in your statement. But discussion - it is when a few people indeed do express their opinions.

It is very common argument when people stated something like that: I am eating bad food, I obese, I do not exercise BUT I am very healthy and have no health issues. AND then this person made a conclusion - my lifestyle is good because I feel I am healthy. Unfortunately, I observe such ill logic at beesource all the time. You used the same logic: my bees are doing great, thus, they are not sick from neonics! Do you see a problem with such logic? You made a couple of assumptions, which are not proven to be true: connection between neonics and CCD - nobody is saying that neonics cause THE CCD. As far as science going - neonics affected the nervous system and ARE NOT acute to the bees. Since the reason for CCD is unknown, you just could not make such connection. Similarly, you could not make a connection between sickness and neonics - are you a doctor? You just could claim that your bees are healthy but it is not enough to claim that neonics (or any other chemical) do not affect your bees or somebody's bees.

If you have great beekeeping practices and feel your bees are doing remarkably well - it does not mean that other beekeepers have no problem - you could speak only for yourself! Thus, it is not fair to ask somebody to explain to you, why your bees are not sick. I guess, your good practice involved! So, tell us what is your good practice, which mitigate the negative effect of neonics! See, how it may be flipped?

Now,another aspect of your statement: I was not able to find exact numbers, but it seems to me that rough estimate is that North America has approximately 15 million beehives/colonies. You have 1000+, which is approximately 0.006%. I am sorry, but from statistical point of view, your operation is not significant to draw ANY conclusion sorry about that. The same as my example (see above) that having unhealthy lifestyle promote good health - would not be accepted by any health organization... on the basis that it is not statistically significant.

My point was that it is not really useful to others to see your statement without explanation what (in your opinion) needs to be done to keep bees healthy? At the end - we all do care about bees!

Re: The Australian Distraction Defense

Originally Posted by cerezha

You made a couple of assumptions, which are not proven to be true: connection between neonics and CCD - nobody is saying that neonics cause THE CCD.

In truth, some people are saying neonicitiniods cause CCD. Some go further, and diagnose just about every dead hive as neonics related CCD, further advising the person that they should give up beekeeping as there is no point trying again.

Originally Posted by cerezha

As far as science going - neonics affected the nervous system and ARE NOT acute to the bees.

Not so. Neonicitinoids can be acute to bees, will kill bees same as any other insecticide.

Originally Posted by cerezha

Now,another aspect of your statement: I was not able to find exact numbers, but it seems to me that rough estimate is that North America has approximately 15 million beehives/colonies. You have 1000+, which is approximately 0.006%. I am sorry, but from statistical point of view, your operation is not significant to draw ANY conclusion sorry about that. The same as my example (see above) that having unhealthy lifestyle promote good health - would not be accepted by any health organization... on the basis that it is not statistically significant.

Spurious argument. If we followed this logic, NOBODY could claim ANYTHING about bees, on any subject, as nobody has what you define as a "statistically significant" number of hives.

Please bear in mind that some of the papers released showing effects of neonicitiniods on bees, use research done on a handful of individual bees, force fed in a laboratory. How "statistically significant" is that?

Originally Posted by cerezha

are you a doctor?

It is not Mikes job, to be a doctor, and explain authoritatively why his bees are doing well, you have it the wrong way round. Others have made claims about Neonics causing CCD. Mike has simply put his hand up and said he has 1000 hives living amongst neonics and thriving. He does not have to explain why. The others, who made the original claim about neonics, have to back themselves if they can, and explain why. Not Mike, he's just making a statement of fact.

Re: The Australian Distraction Defense

Originally Posted by cerezha

If you have great beekeeping practices and feel your bees are doing remarkably well - it does not mean that other beekeepers have no problem - you could speak only for yourself! Thus, it is not fair to ask somebody to explain to you, why your bees are not sick.

Then the flip side to this is that borderbeeman and others can only speak for themselves and not project on everyone else that the sky is falling down due to neonics. Thus, it is not fair to constantly tell people their bees are sick.